RANDA ABDEL-FATTAH
Randa Abdel-Fattah is twenty-eight, and has her own identity hyphens to contend with (Australian-born-Muslim-Palestinian-Egyptian-choc-a-holic).

Her first novel, Does My Head Look Big in This, deals with the issues faced by a young Muslim girl, growing up in Melbourne, who decides to wear the hijab headscarf fulltime. This very popular book was followed by Ten Things I Hate About Me, and in 2008 Randa released her third novel, Where the Streets Had a Name, the story of two young people growing up in the troubled West Bank area. Where the Streets Had A Name has recently won the Golden Inky award. The Inky Awards were created by the State Library of Victoria’s Centre for Youth Literature and are Australia’s only teen choice book awards, "reflecting what teenagers want to read rather than what they are told to read".

Randa is active in the interfaith community and is a member of the Coalition for Peace and Justice in Palestine. She also works as a lawyer and lives in Sydney with her husband, Ibrahim, and their two young children. Her books have received critical acclaim around the world. Most recently, Randa was awarded the Kathleen Mitchell Award, a biennial literary award that acknowledges excellence in writers under 30.

More information at www.randaabdelfattah.com.

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